My Story by Kimberly Joy, Part 1

I'm listening to Camila Cabello shameless. Feels like the perfect song to write my story.

My name is Kimberly, Kimmy also known as Kiko. Currently it is October 22nd 2024 and I'm sitting

inside the Library in the city of Gatineau. I'm 8 months pregnant I have about

3 weeks left before I give birth and my two children are in their respective

educational institutions. I'm also legally married but officially separated as

in we signed separation papers and hopefully once I get all my private pension

information we can finally be fully divorced and move on with our lives. Other

than that I have great girlfriends nearby and some out of town in my hometown

who support my journey. I like to be alone but I also love house parties.

Listening to music helps me actually work hence why I want to work remotely.

I'm actually listening to Madonna Give It To Me Eddie Amador Club five edit.

The 2022 remastered. As I'm using my speech to text app on Google keeps. All

right let's start from the very beginning this is going to be a long one:

Way back at the end of Summer ’84 at 7:22 in the morning a baby girl was born. My biological mother was annoyed because that meant she missed her Tina Turner concert that she

really wanted to go to LOL. I get it.

By then I had an older sister named Kelly who was already 8 years old or about to within a few

months. I don't know what the household actually looked like I don't know if my

biological father lived with my mother or if she was raising the two of us as a

single mom that story is a little fuzzy so if anyone wants to elaborate or

update me I'm perfectly fine with that.

For whatever reason, some people say it was from neglect, some people say it's because my

sister told the teachers that she was taking care of me the baby, and other

people say something about a water main broke while we were both still in our

home unattended, all I know is that I was removed from my mother's home and I

was fostered by the same family that adopted me.

I'm not sure but I believe it's the water main that has something to do with it because I forever

have nightmares about water coming out of the top part of the walls. I'm not

afraid of those nightmares anymore but it took awhile to get over that. I also

never liked swimming under the water like fully immersed without goggles.

My earliest memory is being in a yellow room with preschool letters or numbers on the right side

like 1 2 3 or ABC and there was a door, and I saw what I thought was a child in

the same room with me I thought maybe it was my 8-year-old sister I've been corrected

and I was told it was my 26 or maybe 27 year old mother. She had to be

supervised by a social worker to visit me at the hospital. I remember my

adopted mother telling me that it was my biological mother's choice to stop

visiting me at the hospital. I was probably two maybe three years old at the

time. My vision was blurry I'm not sure why at least the memory is blurry.

I'm pausing because I feel like crying but I'm not sure why I'm also listening to David Guetta

forever young.

I have very happy childhood memories from when I was 4 years old playing in my backyard that was

like a really large backyard. Every few years my adopted family would renovate

the yard and I always remember playing with somebody. My adoptive parents'

names were Joan and Douglas, an Irish and a Scottish couple, a Catholic and

Protestant couple as well. I don't know but that seems like a form of

inter-religious marriage I guess. Keep in mind my adoptive father, Douglas, was

born in 1928 and my mother a few years after. They were already retired when I

arrived at the home. Read that again. They were already retired when I arrived

at the home at like 2 or 3 years old. I'm 40 years old with two children five

and three years old and I couldn't imagine adopting like a two-year-old right

now no less in like 20 years from now. Unless it was a family emergency.

My adopted mother, Joan would bake cheesecake for me date squares Rice Krispies Squares and a

bunch of other things. I never had Kraft dinner for lunch or dinner it wasn't a

household staple I think they both made everything from scratch so I definitely

ate very well. And I always had big birthday parties. Little did I know at the

time that their son who was probably 30 plus years old had just died from a

motorcycle accident right as I was arriving to their home. So they lost a son

but gained a daughter.

When I was 8 years old I believe it was my birthday party as well it was definitely in the

summertime I was introduced to my older sister and I had such a good time with

her she would have been 15 going on 16 years old. I lived in the suburbs and

she lived towards downtown Montreal so I'm not exactly sure how she got to my

home which takes about 45 minutes to drive. My adoption was a closed one but

there were exceptions to the rules back in the early 90s.

To Be Continued…